


M. Lovelace and the End Times

by f0rt1ss1m0



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fantasy, Magic, Multi, Science Fiction, Social Justice, Superheroes, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-06-24 18:12:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19729048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/f0rt1ss1m0/pseuds/f0rt1ss1m0
Summary: Margaret Lovelace, a struggling college grad, was just a kid when the United States government formed the League of Stargazers. Dedicated to justice, freedom, and peace, these superheroes have worked hard to defend the world from evil. But it's been eighteen years since the beginning of the so-called Glory Days. The country still runs on poverty, fear, and corruption. If the Stargazers really defeated evil, Lovelace hasn't seen the results.When a traffic accident leads to a literal encounter with Death, Lovelace is approached with an offer. In exchange for leaving the human world behind, she has a chance to become a supervillain, put a stop to the Stargazers' reign of superficial good deeds, and make some real change in the world. Now neck-deep in time magic, angsty teens with superpowers, and apocalyptic prophecies, is Lovelace getting in over her head? Is she really changing the world — or is she helping to end it?-Y/A urban fantasy-ish. The fantastic lovechild of an old Rise of the Guardians fanfiction and my utter boredom with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Who knows if I'll finish it, because I haven't finished an original work of fiction since 2011, but we'll find out.





	1. Lovelace

Margaret Lovelace was, by all accounts, the oldest eighteen-year-old in the world. Or at least, this room. 

The waiting room was a sanctuary of minimalist architecture. White and cold. Five hard, squarish waiting chairs surrounded a glass coffee table; a nearby wall was entirely glass, gazing over the New York skyline. The only pops of color in the room were the plastic-looking potted plants in the corners. 

There were four other kids here. They were all the same. The boys wore tailored suits and real gold buttons. The girls wore birthstone jewelry and hundred-dollar high heels. They were all healthy and lean and had beautifully straight teeth; many of them looked as if they had gotten a haircut just for this occasion. The air of suburbia was thick enough to choke on. 

Lovelace pulled out her phone, angling it so the others wouldn’t see the cracked screen. She started writing a grocery list in her notes. 

_ Things to get when I return: _

_ Butter.  _

_ Pasta.  _

Finally, a girl broke the silence. She had pretty black curls pulled up with a Swarovski crystal pin.

“Anyone else nervous?” she said.

A few people laughed quietly. Lovelace didn’t indulge it.

_ Printer ink. _

“My older brother actually goes to the Institute,” offered a boy with an American flag pin. “Said once they’ve picked us for the interview, we’re basically in already.”

“But we never filled out applications or anything,” said Swarovski. “They just told me I could interview and to pack my bags when I was ready. I didn’t even give them my resume.”

“They’re part of the government,” said another girl, candy-blue eyeshadow shimmering on her lids. “I was told that they ask schools for the information of their top students, and the schools have to give it.”

“So there’s nothing to worry about,” All-American nodded.

“I know, but still,” said Swarovski.

“Hey, I get it. I can’t help but feel like I’m not meant to be here,” said Eye Candy. “I’ve never, you know,  _ felt  _ magic.”

“It’s not about feeling,” said All-American. “It’s about discipline.”

“Maybe that’s why they call it the psionic  _ sciences,” _ said Swarovski.

“No, I think it’s like art,” added another boy. Unlike the others, he wore a t-shirt under his lavender suit, advertising the newest Broadway musical. 

All-American raised an eyebrow. “Art?”

“A creative person always has the potential to create,” said Broadway. “Even if they’re never trained to do it, and they think that they can’t do it at all. But you’ve lived with it all your life, so you don’t actually know what it feels like to not have an artistic mind. Or not have a psionic mind.”

All-American didn’t seem to agree, but he didn’t say anything. Eye Candy and Swarovski both nodded. Lovelace thought for a moment, mentally taking inventory of her fridge and closet.

_ Apples. _

_ Cheese.  _

_ Deli ham.  _

“So, where are you all from?” asked Swarovski. “I’m from Portland.”

“L.A.,” said Broadway, of course.

“Houston,” said All-American. “But I’m going to school in Connecticut.”

“Let me guess, Yale?” Eye Candy smirked. 

He laughed. “Just trying to be humble.”

“You should be,” said Eye Candy. “We’re going to crush you again in football.”

“Ah. Harvard scum.”

They all laughed. 

“Hey, you’ve been kind of quiet,” said Broadway. “You, Blondie.”

Lovelace looked up. Everyone was staring, waiting expectantly. 

“I’m from Chicago,” she said shortly, then looked back at her phone. 

_ Dish soap. _

_ Bathroom cleaner. _

Hopefully their magical powers allowed them to sense that she didn’t want to talk. 

The waiting room door opened and a fairly large man stepped in. Now Lovelace put her phone down. The man was muscular, with a boxy face and harsh buzzcut that didn’t quite match his fine black suit and tie. Lovelace disliked him immediately. 

“Good morning,” he said. “My name is Agent Rodnick. I work for the Office of Supernatural Affairs within the Department of Homeland Security. In layman’s terms, I represent the Stargazers.”

A hush fell. It had been quiet before, but now the quiet included wide eyes, which made it less of a quiet and more of a hush. 

“I’ll be conducting your interviews,” said Rodnick. “First, I’m required to show you a message.”

In her hand, Lovelace’s phone vibrated. A text from work.  _ Can you come in tonight? _

_ I’m 800 miles away,  _ Lovelace replied, not bothering with manners. 

_ We really need the help. Thanks! _

“Put away your phones,” said Rodnick. When Lovelace looked up, he was glaring daggers. She glared right back and put her phone in her purse. 

Rodnick walked to the window and tapped the glass, pulling up a glowing blue keypad. The window darkened to opaque black. A white video screen popped up as if by magic, though Lovelace knew it wasn’t magic, just technology that was so advanced it might as well be. Patriotic music filled the air, booming from unseen speakers.

A woman appeared on the screen. Her long black hair was threaded with silver, but her dark face was young and a particular mischief sparkled in her green eyes. She wore a navy blue robe and a collection of rings that glimmered like galaxies.

_ “Welcome, future apprentices,”  _ said the woman.  _ “As many of you know, I am Genesis, leader of the Stargazers and archmage at the Institute of Psionic Sciences.” _

She had a strange voice, lulling and motherly, with an accent that didn’t seem entirely natural. Or at least, not from any language Lovelace had ever heard. Maybe to some, it fit the mystical witch persona that she seemed to have constructed, but to Lovelace, it came off as pretentious. Of course everyone knew who Genesis was. The woman was just ringing her own bell.

“ _ You are here today because you have proven yourself to be an individual of great potential. Out of every eighteen-year-old in the United States of America, the Institute has noticed you — your insatiable creativity, your vibrant intelligence, your selfless contributions to the communities where you live. I’m sure this isn’t the first time you’ve heard praise of your talents.” _

Genesis paused to give a cryptic smile.

_ “But you are here because you are not just the ordinary kind of extraordinary. You are here because your spirits glisten like diamonds among dust. You are here because we believe that you are among the next class of Stargazers.” _

Next to Lovelace, Eye Candy leaned back in her chair and grinned cockily. Broadway blushed. Swarovski and All-American both looked very pleased with themselves. This wasn’t news to them. They’d probably expected to hear those words for years.

_ “The study of the psionic sciences requires a unique, specific skill set,”  _ continued Genesis.  _ “You must be highly intelligent. Empathetic. Curious. Creative. Fearless. You must have an energy that flows with the energy of the world, rather than against it. And while that might sound like gibberish to you now, I assure you that it is very real, and it is present inside each of you.” _

Lovelace resisted the urge to roll her eyes at that. 

_ “However, choosing this path is no small matter. The common perception is that the life of a Stargazer is glamorous, and that to become a superhero is to become a celebrity, but this is incorrect. Studying the psionic sciences requires great personal sacrifice. As Stargazers, we are the face of not just the organization, but of the country, the psionic population of the world, and the psionic sciences themselves. We use our powers to bring hope and peace. We are models of courage, empathy, and goodness in the face of evil. We are heroes in a villainous age. And most importantly, we are ready to give everything to defend the people of this country. The question is — ” _

Genesis paused. She seemed to stare right into Lovelace’s soul. 

“ —  _ what about you?” _

The video ended. Agent Rodnick tapped his fingers on the window, and the dark screen cleared away to let the light in again. 

“Okay,” said Rodnick, “I’ll be seeing Miss Zendejas first. The rest of you — don’t make trouble.”

Agent Rodnick turned to leave and Swarovski stood up after him. “Bye, guys, see you soon,” she grinned. 

“Break a leg!” said Broadway, waving.

Lovelace’s phone began buzzing in her purse. Her manager was trying to call her. Lovelace cancelled the call and sent a text reading,  _ Piss your pants.  _ She wouldn’t be fired for that. It was food service. They were too understaffed.

Two hours passed without anyone saying a word. The bubbly Swarovski had been the only stimulus for conversation, it appeared. Every thirty minutes on the dot, Agent Rodnick would return alone and take an interviewee; Swarovski, then Broadway, then Eye Candy, then All-American. None of them returned. Maybe Rodnick was murdering them, one by one. It would certainly be a refreshing twist. 

Initially, Lovelace busied herself with the e-textbook she’d downloaded on her phone —  _ Tort Law and Practice for Paralegals.  _ It was April. Finals approached like an oncoming train. She thought about it for a while, then added  _ coffee  _ to the shopping list before returning to the text. But by the time Rodnick pulled All-American out of the room, leaving Lovelace alone, she had read only a half page and understood none of it. 

When she was sure she was alone, she put down her phone and put her head in her hands. She was a liar. She was so nervous. She didn’t know why; she already knew what she had to say and what she had to do. A little voice begged her to reconsider. Everyone in the world wanted what was within her grasp. But in the end, she steeled herself, swatted it away like a fly, and distracted herself by picking at her cheap, already-chipped nail polish.

Some time passed. The door opened again and Rodnick leaned in.

“Miss Lovelace,” he said.

She gathered her things. Rodnick’s pale, critical eyes drifted down as she walked towards him, and she knew what he saw. A second hand jacket and skirt. Scuffed black flats; earrings bought from a pharmacy; an awkward bend in the wire of her glasses. Thin and small and sickly, left shoulder hanging lower than the right, gait stiff and sore. 

She met his eyes and didn’t blink until he did.

He led her into a white corridor with ceilings that soared. Huge, bright oil paintings lined the walls, three on each side. The six original Stargazers. They’d all been eighteen, like her, when they made headlines in the early 2000s’ as America’s first all-psionic superhero squad. Genesis, Reverie, Apollo, Zina, Concord, and Will; a witch prodigy, a tech genius, a celestial archer, an unstoppable warrior, a benevolent psychic, and a forever-young demigod. They were comic book characters come to life, defeating alien cults and doomsday plotters and mad scientists at every turn.

Sure, it’d been cool once, when Lovelace was in grade school. Every kid had a favorite. Halloween every year was a wash of the same six polyester costumes. These crowds of kids, dripping in rhinestone masks and golden capes, were the generation of hope — hope that the coming of superheroes signaled the coming of a greater, more prosperous age.

What a joke. 

They arrived at a clean white office overlooking a different part of the city. The Empire State Building was a few blocks away. Agent Rodnick sat on one side of the desk and motioned for Lovelace to sit on the other. Then he pulled out a notepad and a manila folder with her full name printed on the front. 

“So, Miss Lovelace,” he said. “Tell me about yourself.”

Lovelace’s hands, folded in her lap, tightened.

“Well,” she replied, “I’m eighteen, I’m in my third year at Northwestern University studying political science, and I decline your offer.”

Rodnick had gotten as far as opening the file and pulling out a single piece of paper. Then he stopped cold. “I’m sorry?”

“I decline the offer,” she repeated. “I do not plan to attend the Institute of Psionic Sciences.”

She stood to leave. 

“You can’t do — _ sit down _ — what do you mean, you decline?” Rodnick demanded. 

Lovelace did not sit. “I don’t want to become a Stargazer. I want to become a lawyer. I plan to complete my bachelor’s, become a paralegal, and save money for law school. Having an aptitude for magic doesn’t change that plan.”

“You waited two hours just to decline?”

“Oh, I could have declined earlier. But I wouldn’t have gotten the free private jet flight or the five-star hotel room.”

Agent Rodnick just stared, his mouth open, as if waiting for the air to enter and fill his lungs for him. She put on her coat.

“Thank you for your time,” she said.

“We’ll help you repay it. All of it.”

She stopped. He didn’t even have to say what  _ it  _ was. Slowly, Lovelace turned and placed her hands on the back of the chair for balance.

“Is this a bribe?” she asked.

A ghost of a smile tugged at the side of Agent Rodnick’s mouth. “You know, I didn’t think I would like you.”

“I don’t care about being likeable.”

“But that’s what I like about you,” he replied. “Do you have any idea how many trust fund kids I have to deal with every year? You see, nowadays, there’s a certain profile that our students need to fit — noble, charismatic, crowd-pleasing. But you’re none of those.”

Lovelace folded her arms. “Flattery won’t help.”

Rodnick waved his hand vaguely towards the door, perhaps referencing the others who had just left, or perhaps even the paintings in the hall beyond. “People like them inspire the country,” he said. “And we need that. But we also need to win wars. People like you win wars.”

“People like me.”

“People who speak their mind. Sensible, experienced in the world, not afraid of offending anyone.”

She was silent. Her gaze settled on two things on the shelf behind Rodnick, a picture of his family and a little white hourglass that didn’t seem to have been flipped recently. The top bulb was nearly empty. Only a few grains remained, stuck in the needle-thin neck, not going anywhere soon.

“People who’ve gone through hell and come out on both feet,” Rodnick added softly.

She met his eyes again.

“What you’re doing right now is very honorable,” he continued. “It’s impressive, working and traveling a month after — ”

“Excuse me,” Lovelace cut in. “What makes you think that you can talk about my personal life?”

Rodnick bristled. “I was giving you a compliment — ”

“Is that part of the interview too? Digging up someone’s medical and financial history? You’re the government, why am I surprised?”

“Nothing in your background check disqualified you. All we found were good things. Now sit down before you change my mind.”

“Change it faster.”

Rodnick stood up. Like lightning had struck nearby, the air jolted with energy, making the hairs on the back of Lovelace’s neck stand on end. Fear knotted in her gut — most civilians had never been in the same room as a trained psionic, and she came to the sudden realization that she was no longer of the majority. But she still lifted her chin and kept her eyes on his.

“Don’t make this mistake,” Rodnick snarled.

“Or what?” she asked. “You’ll strike me down like a true hero?”

“Stop.”

“I don’t follow your orders.”

“We could change your life. You’d never worry about money again.”

“You know, that’s really funny. Generic, or whatever her name is, she said I’m special. But I’m not, am I? I’m just another poor kid that the government doesn’t care about. Then, when it’s convenient for you, you’ll help us poor kids pay our debts, as long as we fight and die in your wars for you. But when we don’t want to do that...what are we? A threat?”

Rodnick’s eye twitched, light flickering across the iris. “Turning down this offer isn’t just stupid. It’s suspicious. You walk out that door, you’re a person of interest until you’re dead.”

Lovelace smiled.

“I’ll never earn enough to be a threat to the government,” she said flatly. “And you’ll never offer me enough to make me a hero.”

Without another word, she walked away from Agent Rodnick’s office, past the paintings of the Stargazers, and out into the real world.

She never looked back.


	2. Death

_Three Years Later_

Death was, by all accounts, the most boring nineteen-year-old in the world. Or at least, in the Shadow Lair.

His gait was stiff as he strode down the dark, shadowy corridors. His gait was always stiff. Meeting him often sparked the looming dread that you were face to face with the real Angel of Death, ready to drain the soul from your body. But the Angel of Death and the nineteen-year-old Death were not related, just unfortunately named, and the nineteen-year-old Death did not do any real soul-draining yet. The dread of soul-draining upon meeting him actually came from the fact that the nineteen-year-old Death could talk for hours about math, classical music composers, or ways to make oatmeal. 

He stopped outside his father’s office and adjusted his red necktie. Then, inhaling, he knocked. 

“Come in, Death,” said his father.

Death stepped inside, looking around at today’s office. It was “today’s office” because his father was among the five people in all of known history who was fluent in applying the complex principles of dimensional magic to interior design. Two of those had found successful careers on home renovation shows; one integrated it into her repertoire of terrorist interrogation tactics; one used the ability solely to make his in-laws jealous. Zorandar Shade used it for evil schemes. 

Today, the office was dark, simple in design. Only a huge white globe, the continents outlined in wisps of blue, hovered in the center of the room and turned ever slowly. Zorandar Shade stood in front of it. His eyes were obscured by his glasses, which reflected the glow of the globe. 

“You wanted to see me, Father?” said Death. 

Shade did not take his eyes off the globe. “Yes, I did,” he said, sounding distant.

Death reached into his pocket and found a folded piece of parchment, which he had received from one of the messenger crows a few minutes earlier. “The note said you would like to talk about how I do the laundry,” said Death. 

“Right,” said Shade, still spaced out. 

Death frowned. “With all due respect, I must object.”

“Hm?”

“I fold the laundry much better than anyone else in the family. I enjoy laundry, Father.”

Shade’s brow furrowed and he shook his head, snapping back to reality and looking at his son. “I know that,” he said. “But this isn’t about the laundry.”

“It’s not?”

“No. I just wanted an inconspicuous meeting.”

“Inconspicuous.”

“You need to finish a job for Tempest.”

Oh. Now the fake laundry note made total sense. 

“The recruitment job?” asked Death.

“I originally assigned it to Tempest because you’re needed here,” said Shade. “But Tempest can be a wild spirit, as you know, and the recruitment is proving too...delicate for her. I need you to do it.”

“Father, I can’t leave my siblings without a leader.”

“I’ve instructed Tempest to lead. She thinks you’re helping me locate the Third Treatise.”

“I have total faith in my siblings to behave in my absence,” said Death.

He had no faith in his siblings to behave in his absence.

If Shade noticed the lie, he didn’t comment on it. “Thank you,” he said. Then he gestured to the globe. “You remember this, don’t you?”

Death examined it. Scattered across its surface were a handful of gold points and many, many more red circles. The gold points were all uniform in size and brightness, but the red circles were interesting; they appeared and disappeared and shrank and grew in real time. Most of the circles were shrinking — gradually turning from a large, pale blotch to a pinprick point so red that it looked as if someone had drawn blood from the globe. When they turned the dark red, they vanished. 

“The red ones are deaths to come,” said Death. “Azrael gets twelve-hour advance notices from fate. I made that arrangement with them years ago.”

“It’s been very handy.”

“What about the gold points?”

Shade reached forward and touched his finger to one, a point in Arizona. The image of a young First Nations girl appeared before their eyes. She was running through a park with her friends, trailing a stick with a bright blue ribbon tied to the end. She looked like an ordinary child, but as Death watched, he noticed a tell-tale brightness to her eyes, a particular quickness with how she clambered around the monkey bars and wielded the stick like a mage’s staff.

“People of interest,” said Shade, dismissing the image of the girl. “Child prodigies, mage descendants, candidates who declined. If they’re young, the Stargazers watch them, snatch them up at eighteen or whenever they showed their aptitude, and get them to attend the Institute. If they’re older and didn’t go, they watch them on a scrying globe like this, make sure they don’t become...dangerous.”

“How did you make _that_ arrangement?” asked Death.

“Not legally.”

“Solitude?”

“Yes.” Shade moved his hand over the globe again and flicked his fingers, focusing on Midwest America. Most of the dots, gold and red alike, were clustered near Chicago. As Shade zoomed in further, the dots became clearer, moving around the hazy streets and buildings.

Finally, he found what he was looking for. A gold point pulsed in the center of a large pale circle. When the dot began to move, so did the circle. Almost too slow for the human eye to see, the circle began to shrink and darken.

Shade selected the point. A young woman appeared before them, rushing through the halls of what looked like a law firm. She was disheveled and dazed, papers and files overflowing from her arms. 

“That’s her,” said Shade.

“Her?” repeated Death, doubtful.

“It has to be.”

“Do we know anything about her?”

“Not even a name. Information about the people of interest is harder to access than the scrying network, I suppose.”

“So the most dangerous task that any mortal could undertake,” said Death slowly, “and you’re leaving it up to blind trust.”

Shade folded his hands in front of him, rubbing a ring on his right hand. “In a little over six months, the end times will be upon us. I need someone — anyone.”

In the image, the woman brought the files to a lawyer’s desk, moving a cup of coffee to make room. When a man stormed up to her and snapped something that Death and Shade couldn’t hear, the woman jumped and spilled the coffee all over herself and the files. She said a word that they couldn’t hear either. But the meaning was pretty clear.

“Will she accept?” asked Death. 

Zorandar Shade reached into his pocket and pulled out a gold watch. “We’ll find out in eleven hours,” he said, “when she dies.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the amazing response to this story!! I didn't expect so many people to be interested in it. This is a short chapter that I broke off from a piece of a longer chapter, so I might post the rest a little later this week, depending on what I hear from you guys. Anyway!! Let me know what you think, reviews are love :D


	3. Lovelace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early update, since I chopped this chapter off from the last one! Enjoy :D

If Lovelace had any foreknowledge of her fate, she would have thought it fit that she spilled coffee on herself not once — not twice — but three times in the twenty four hours before she died. Maybe she would have even laughed. 

In the moment, she wasn’t laughing. She had just spilled the second cup. It wasn’t even hers. It had belonged to Mr. Sanderson, the most misogynistic lawyer at Klein, Sanderson & Malone, LLC, where Lovelace was the most disrespected legal secretary. Or at least, that’s how it felt. 

She was riding the 1:30 bus, holding her coat over her lap to hide the big brown stain on her white skirt. Sanderson had made her leave early. “Can’t get anything done right,” he’d raged. “You’re still such a child. Too proud of yourself. Too much of a temper. Always rushing everywhere. You’d never last a day in another firm, you hear?” It was only garden-variety emotional abuse compared to the other things she heard from that man, but it still hurt. A painful reminder that she only had this job because the whole child prodigy thing made the firm look good. The child prodigy thing seemed to get her into a lot of her messes.

The bus hit a pothole, jostling her whole body. Her glasses bounced on her nose. She’d had a headache since early this morning, when she’d spilled her own coffee. The pain flared. Groaning, she squeezed her eyes shut. 

“I’m not sleeping enough,” she thought to herself. Immediately, her brain responded, “Sleep is for the rich.”

Another pothole. She rubbed her temples.

It had been a hard three years since the Stargazer interview. She graduated with her bachelor’s degree in political science and got her job at a good probate law firm. She had an apartment that she shared with her best friend. But that was all supposed to make it different, wasn’t it? She wouldn’t have to get a second job as a phone salesperson at a sketchy car insurance company. She wouldn’t have to work seventy hours a week. She wouldn’t have to give up on her dream of law school.

Of course, she’d never been stupid enough to actually believe that. But somewhere in her cold, caffeine-clogged hunk of a heart, there had been a glimmer of hope. 

Hope that had been dashed like a wave against a cliff. 

When the bus dropped her off near her apartment, it was beginning to spit rain. Not enough to open an umbrella or darken the sky or do any of those things that made it a good rain, but the kind of rain that was annoying and cold and made her hair stick to the back of her neck. She hurried up the stairs to her apartment, wobbling on her high heels.

Lovelace’s roommate, Dasanya, was home. She sat on the couch, watching cartoons with her three-year-old son, Ty. 

Ty pointed at the brown coffee stain on Lovelace’s skirt. “Lacey made poopy,” he said. 

“Hey, Ty,” said Lovelace.

“Lacey did not make poopy,” said Dasanya. “She does look like crap, though.”

Lovelace left her coat and bag on the kitchen table. “I’m like, this close,” she said, pinching her fingers together. “I’m actually going to kill them one of these days. I hate them.”

“Was it Sanderson again?”

“I hate him in particular.”

“Only Sanderson makes you murderous. It’s fun to watch.”

Lovelace just grunted and went to her room. She looked at the folded pajama sweatpants in her drawer and sighed, wishing that she could just shower and end the day already, but forced herself to exchange her work skirt for another and redo her hair in its bun. 

She microwaved some mac-n-cheese leftovers, took two Advils for her headache, and sat with Dasanya and Ty. She had a voicemail from Mr. Malone, one of the nicer senior partners at her law firm.  _ “Sorry about earlier today,”  _ he said.  _ “You know John — that’s just how he was raised. Unfortunately, though, the coffee did get on the only copy of a brief, so we’re going to have to take that out of your pay. But we do appreciate you, Margaret. I’ll talk to John and see if I can get him to apologize. See you tomorrow.” _

“Ouch,” said Dasanya, overhearing the voicemail.

Rubbing her forehead, Lovelace inhaled tightly. “I’ve already spoken to him about using my first name.”

“How much do they take out of your pay?”

“It’s always twenty dollars.” She opened up her notes app and found her monthly budget sheet. “They justify it by saying that I make more than most people my age.”

“You also  _ do  _ more than most people your age,” said Dasanya.

“Shh,” said Ty. “I’m watching a show.”

“Maybe I can get some grocery coupons. If I leave early today, I can go up the block and see if I can find any newspapers.”

Dasanya put her hand on Lovelace’s arm. “Girl,” she said. “I’m shopping this week. I’ll deal with it.”

Lovelace gave her a grateful smile. As a general rule, she didn’t like pity gestures. But from Dasanya, it felt different. She wasn’t sure why. 

“You guys are terrible,” said Ty. “Shhhhhhhh.”

Lovelace and Dasanya laughed and turned their attention to Ty’s TV show. On the screen, cartoon versions of superheroes flew around, blasting magic beams at funny green aliens. The animation was terrible and the writing was worse. But at least Ty seemed happy. After defeating the bad guys, the characters teamed up, pointed their hands at the sky, and chanted, “When you shoot for the stars, you can do anything!” 

Dasanya shifted her son to sit on her lap, then leaned over to Lovelace. “Hey,” she whispered. “You ever think about all that? That you coulda gone to a magic school?”

Lovelace shrugged. “Not really.”

“It’s not crazy to you? That if you really wanted, you could — you could do that?”

One of the cartoon characters waved her hands and made a fireball appear above her head. Lovelace chuckled.

“It’s not that simple. It takes years of studying to even light a candle on your own. And it’s certainly not like that.” Lovelace rolled her eyes at the heroic fight scenes. “That’s government propaganda.”

“That’s my show,” said Ty.

“If you insist,” Lovelace sighed.

To Ty’s relief, the conversation died out at that. Lovelace took a short nap. At four thirty, her phone alarm buzzed, waking her, and she dragged herself off the couch. Ty was gone. Dasanya’s bedroom door was closed, and the whiteboard on the back of it read,  _ Naptime. My shift is 9-6. Alice will have Ty until 11, pls hurry home, thx Lacey!! <3 _

Sometimes Lovelace would get caught in the rut of thinking that nobody could have a harder life than she did, but then remembered that Dasanya was a twenty-year-old single mom who worked nights at Wal-mart. 

But as Lovelace rode the bus to her second job of the day, she couldn’t help but think. Maybe Dasanya was onto something, lingering on “wizard school” again. If Lovelace could travel back in time three years, if the Stargazers asked her again, if she had the chance to choose all over again — would she still decline? Sometimes she got so angry with people like Sanderson and Malone, she wanted to scream at them that she wasn’t going to tolerate being stepped on, she wanted them to know that she was capable of  _ just that much.  _ It made her blood boil to see people like Dasanya slaving away to make a better life that would forever slip out of her grasp. If Lovelace had accepted, could she have helped? Could she have made things better for everyone else? And if not for everyone else, could she at least have made it better for herself?

She looked out the window. The sky was the kind of fluorescent white-grey that hurt her head more, so she looked to the cracked pavement flickering by. The brown litter and black gum-spots. The rows and rows of bland tan apartments that were exactly like her own. The homeless boys huddling on the corners. And above the American display, perched on a building, she saw a billboard illustrated in the classic comic book style. Six Stargazers posed on the board, wielding magic swords and sparks. In the center was the silhouette of an army soldier.  _ We can’t defend freedom without YOU!  _

_ No _ , she decided. Nothing good could come from the Stargazers, nothing good could come from heroism, and nothing good could come from magic.

She put her head down and waited to arrive at work. 

* * *

Lovelace’s second job was always harder than the first, even though she did less.

She was a call center sales representative for a car insurance company. An odd pairing with her first job, especially since Lovelace didn’t really like insurance or phone calls. But the hours were relatively flexible, she was good at following the script that they gave her, and at least it wasn’t food service, so it was an okay job. 

She had a tiny cubicle in the corner of a vast floor full of other sales reps. Since she had been at this job for two years — pretty long in comparison to her coworkers, who typically burnt out pretty fast — she had a sliver of a window. While she ran through calls, she would look out and watch the buses cycle through the bus stop. She had all their schedules memorized. Red line, every thirty minutes until midnight. Green line, every hour until 12:30 A.M., presumably. Thankfully, she had never had to stay that late.

Things were slow tonight. It was slow every night. They’d had to let a lot of people go — these jobs were all being outsourced to India nowadays, since a multibillion-dollar company was too penny-pinched to pay a group of Americans ten dollars an hour. It was only a matter of time before they let Lovelace go, too, and she’d be on the job market again. 

At nine, two hours before the end of her shift, it began raining. Hard. Thunder rumbled above them and the lights in the building flickered. There were no more calls in the queue. Lovelace hurried through the computer tasks she had been assigned, then stared at the window. Night was falling — the rain blurred the lights of the streets, bleeding neon and glimmering yellow.

She stood up in her cubicle and looked around. She had had no visitors; her coworkers considered her “hostile” and “asocial” and typically let her do her work alone. She sat back down. It was a good night to implement her system. Her system worked like this: turn her work phone ringer up to wake her if she got a call (she usually didn’t, this time of the night), set her cell phone timer to remind her to leave, and nap sitting up until the night was over. Her logs would say that she hadn’t made any outgoing calls during her naptime, but she’d just lie and say there must have been an error. She was good at lying.

It felt a little bad, but it was necessary. It helped the second job not be as unbearable. It was a good system. 

Except, of course, when it backfired.

Today was Thursday — Lovelace had already worked fifty hours that week. She had suffered a low- to moderate-level headache for forty-three of them. And she was tired, so tired. Tired enough to sleep through the three incoming calls on the work phone. Tired enough to not feel the cell phone timer vibrating in her lap. Tired enough that her head hit the desk and stayed there.

And tired enough not to notice when her coworkers left for the night.

When Lovelace came to, it was with a start. The office was quiet. The room felt...unbalanced. She looked up and realized that half the lights were off. There were no clackings of fingers on keyboards. No phones ringing and perky voices answering. No shuffling of papers or coughing. Her computer had automatically gone to sleep and the light on her work phone blinked, signaling missed calls.

Outside, at the bus stop, the Green line bus waited.

Dread, like a cold hand, clenched her stomach. She shot to her feet and whirled around. The office was dead as a tomb. The wall clock read 12:27.

“No,” she whispered. “Oh, no, no, no!”

_ This is bad.  _ She scrambled to grab her coat and briefcase. Her cold coffee burst open and spilled on the carpet, but she didn’t care.  _ This is so, so bad!  _ She was yelling the words as she ran. Her ankle twisted on her high heel, so she yanked them off and ran barefoot. Elevators were locked. She took the stairs.

When she burst through the lobby doors, it was a downpour, pitch black, the sky weeping.  _ There!  _ The red taillights, the word  _ Green _ blurred by the rain. It began to move.

“WAIT!”

But the bus didn’t wait. It was picking up speed. Lovelace took off down the sidewalk, sobbing. The bus passed through an intersection.

“I have to get back!” she screamed. “I have to — ”

She didn’t look. Wasn’t following anything except the blind fear and the taillights. She didn’t see the yellow, then red lights that lit up after the bus trundled through; she didn’t see the truck rolling over the crosswalk.

She didn’t feel it hit her body.

But she knew it did.

There was an awful  _ SCREECH  _ and the world went dark.


	4. Lovelace

It was an eerie sensation, that of having just died, because Lovelace knew she was supposed to be in pain. At least, more pain than usual. But there was none at all. She wondered when her life would flash before her eyes, but the first thing that came to mind was how she’d spilled her coffee three times in one day. A light pulsed above her, a warm pink through her eyelids.

She wasn’t sure which of these things was most surprising — that her headache was gone, that the only memorable thing about her life was spilling coffee, or that she was actually in heaven. Tentatively, she opened her eyes.

The gates of heaven looked a lot like a grill guard.

Lovelace was suspended in the air ten feet away from the front of a semi truck, staring into its headlights. Her coat, briefcase, and shoes, yanked from her hands by the force of the truck, hovered beside her. Even the rain was frozen. Nothing moved. There was no sound.

She tried to move. She could. Like getting out of an invisible dentist’s chair, Lovelace sat up and stepped gingerly onto the street. She tried to poke her briefcase and startled when her hand passed through it. As she moved through the raindrops, they simply phased through her body.

“This is it,” she said softly. “I’m dead.”

“Not dead. But about to be.”

Lovelace whirled around. On the sidewalk, waiting for her, was the most beautiful person she had ever seen.

He was about her age and tall. Tousled black hair and a dark brown complexion. Well-dressed, wearing a fine black overcoat and red tie. Dangling from his hand was a gold chain with a white pearl on the end. His voice was smooth and accented, like calligrapher’s ink from a fountain pen.

“When this chain begins to spin, time will resume. Your body will slam into the intersection, right about there,” said the young man, gesturing with his free hand. “You might be alive and the truck driver will get out to help you, but you will certainly die when the car of three drunk frat boys runs you over.” He pointed down the other street to a pinprick of light.

“Is that a threat, or a friendly heads-up?” Lovelace asked.

The young man’s lip twitched. He had golden eyes, glimmering like twin suns.

“Actually,” he said, “a job offer.”

Lovelace frowned.

“You’re the Grim Reaper, right?” she said. “I assume that’s what’s going on. You want me to work for you?”

“Almost.”

He stepped into the street. When his shoe hit a puddle, the water didn’t move. He walked over it as if it was glass.

“My name is Death, but I’m not the one you’re thinking of. The Immortal Elder Death will arrive to collect your soul in about six seconds. But that’s not me. I’m on business for my father, a human.”

Lovelace eyed Death, scanning him head to toe. It was actually easier to handle his presence when she thought that he was truly the Grim Reaper. But he seemed pretty human — not that she’d seen any non-humans except on newscasts. She folded her arms.

“What is this, really?” she said. “Because if it’s Stargazer magic nonsense, I’ll pass.”

“Magic, yes. Stargazer, no.”

“Because that makes total sense.”

“It’s a very long story.”

“Well, you stopped time, you can tell it?”

Death grimaced. In his hand, the pearl at the end of the chain began to sway, as if on an unfelt breeze. He flicked his hand, bringing the swinging pearl to a trembling halt.

“I stalled time,” he said. “Time doesn’t like being stalled.”

Lovelace’s eyes narrowed.

“Fine. What’s the offer?” she asked.

“My father needs someone he can trust,” said Death. “He thinks it’s you. The offer is this: follow me, hear us out, and save your life.”

“And if I say no?”

“Then I let time resume and you have to die.”

Lovelace looked over her shoulder, at the place where her body had hung in the air. She whirled back to Death with a scowl.

“You set this up? You hit me with a truck to offer me an ultimatum like that?”

“You got hit by a truck because you ran into an intersection,” he replied.

“Ah, yes! Convenient to ask me now, when I can’t refuse without dying, instead of appearing to me on the bus to work this morning.”

“It was convenient, yes.”

“It was manipulative.”

“It was necessary.”

“Oh, do tell.”

“Are you so daft to think that every second of your life isn’t being monitored?” asked Death. “At this very moment, in New York, a group of Stargazers sit around a magical livestream of your death. You interviewed with them at some point, didn’t you? Did you think they would just leave you be?”

Lovelace was silent. No, she didn’t believe that they would leave her be. But she just figured that meant monitoring her Internet search history and the like. A magical livestream of her death, though…

In Death’s hand, the little pearl began to sway again. The air became thick, electric, as time struggled to tick. Death saw it too and then met Lovelace’s eyes.

“We don’t have time to debate ethics,” he said. “Make a choice.”

“What do you mean, ‘they’?” Lovelace demanded. “All this — time stopping, hero magic stuff — that’s Stargazer jurisdiction, you’re talking like you’re not one of them.”

“I told you, I’m not.”

“Then what are you? And who’s your _father_?”

Death tried to make the same hand gesture to stop the pearl, but it stalled for only a few seconds. He extended his hand to Lovelace.

“We’re villains,” he said. “Choose. _Now_.”

Villains?

The pearl broke free of the invisible hold. It swung again, higher. Invisible hands grabbed Lovelace’s shoulders and they pulled her back. Back to the empty space where fate ordained her to die. Her bare heels dragged against the asphalt.

Doubt and fear grappled. Fear won. She grabbed Death’s hand, and he pulled her out of the street and let go. The momentum sent her sprawling over the sidewalk. When she looked up, she saw him lunge forward, making a complex motion with his free hand, dragging streaks of light through space. In the empty space in the air, a ghostly form began to flicker.

Then Death swung the pearl in a single, quick circle, and time snapped back into motion.

Lovelace saw it all, as if through someone else’s eyes — a copy of her body popped into existence from the ghostly form, a frozen scream on its face. Then the body flew and landed in the intersection. Her body struggled to breathe and pushed itself up before collapsing; the trucker got out and ran towards the body in a blind panic. And then the frat boys’ car came and flattened it like a pancake.

On the sidewalk, the living Lovelace fainted.


	5. Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter, but important.

Death regarded the unconscious woman for a second, then looked out at the very dead one on the road. The frat boys and the trucker fluttered around the splatter of human salsa in distress, but none of them seemed to see Death or the living, unconscious woman at all. Illusion charms were quite handy, really. 

He stooped down and picked her up. Her head, with its messy blond bun, rolled against his chest. She looked almost peaceful like this. Perhaps, when she awoke, it was better if she didn’t remember seeing herself die. Death made a note to ask about it when he went home, then turned his attention to the matter at hand.

“I know you’re here,” he said aloud.

He looked to his left. A small figure had appeared next to him, clad in a cloak so dark, so lightless it might have been cut from the fabric of a black hole. Death’s grip on Lovelace tightened. He subtly pushed his heels into the ground, willing the gravity of the earth to be stronger than the gravity of the figure. 

DEATH, said the figure.

Death inclined his chin. “Death.”

The two Deaths regarded each other for a while. Azrael and the Son of Shade. Angel and Man. Elder and Younger.

I WAS EXPECTING YOUR SISTER, said the Elder Death. They had a voice like a whispering crowd; deep, resounding, but at the same time, soft. 

“She wasn’t cutting it,” said the Younger Death.

SHE KILLED FOUR ON ACCIDENT AND THE OTHER TWO ON PURPOSE. SHE NEVER GOT AS FAR AS YOU. 

“That’s called incompetence.”

I LIKED HER. 

“I’m sure you did.”

The Younger couldn’t see the Elder’s face, but he somehow knew they were scowling. They pointed a single, pale finger at the Younger.

OUR DEPARTMENT HAS JUST ABOUT HAD ENOUGH WITH YOU AND YOUR FAMILY. THE PAPERWORK IS HORRIFYING. MARY FROM CORPOREALS IS GOING TO MAKE YOU KNIT THE FAKE BODY YOURSELF, ONE OF THESE DAYS. 

“I apologize,” said the Younger.

The Elder probably noticed the lack of sincerity, but they didn’t say anything. In front of the two Deaths, a police car appeared, and a few minutes later, an ambulance. EMTs flocked around the forlorn pile of clothes before standing up solemnly and loading the fake body into a bag.

The Elder reached out from the black cloak. The hand hovered an inch above the sleeping woman’s head, brushing a strand of hair, a motion that almost seemed kind. The Younger shot the Elder a glare that might ordinarily wither a plant, but the Elder didn’t notice. 

A YOUNG TRAGEDY. SHE WILL BE MISSED. 

“Who did she leave behind?”

The Elder was quiet, as if trying to remember. But they didn’t need to try. They knew. They always knew. 

ASK HER, they said.

Both Deaths looked down. An empty wicker picnic basket had appeared on the Elder’s arm. 

DON’T LET THIS GET TO YOUR HEAD. YOU’VE ONLY BOUGHT HER BORROWED TIME. 

“Is there another kind?”

The Elder slowly closed the lid of the basket.

“Can’t you just tell us how it happens?” asked the Younger.

YOU ASSUME THAT WE KNOW. 

“Your department can’t want this. All the paperwork, all at once, a flood in six months. And then nothing else for eternity.”

It was hard to tell with the cloak, but the Elder made a movement that resembled a shrug. 

I COULD RETIRE. 

“Do you want that?”

IT’S NOT MY CHOICE. IF YOUR FATHER’S MEDDLING MEANS ANYTHING, IT’S HERS. 

They pointed at the sleeping woman. In the lull of sleep, her eyes moved under her lids; her jaw tensed slightly. The Younger shifted her in his arms and she stirred, but didn’t wake. Perhaps she was dreaming.

The Younger looked up. The Elder Death was gone. From the intersection, the ambulance drove away. The police handcuffed the drivers and put tape around the scene.

In a few minutes, a Stargazer representative would arrive, check for foul play, interview the witnesses and anyone who knew the woman when she was alive, investigate if there was anything suspicious about her passing. It was time for the Younger Death to make sure there wasn’t.

He turned and walked away, carrying the woman close to his chest.


	6. Lovelace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter, back when each chapter had a unique title, was originally called "Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman Confused."
> 
> I really hope one of these days I'll go back and title the chapters again.

Waking up was a process.

Lovelace floated idly in and out of consciousness, watching the strange dark shadows that morphed and shifted above her. The room was dark and warm, a cozy place for a nap. Her body was completely numb and she couldn’t move. 

It was like sleep paralysis if sleep paralysis was comforting and not terrifying in the least. Her brain seemed to have been replaced by a very nice, soft cloud. At one point, she looked down and saw a boy standing at the foot of her bed. The boy had white hair, white skin, and a white robe. He was uncomfortably thin and had silver eyes with no pupils. Normally, she would have screamed, but now she only smiled and drifted back to sleep. 

When she truly awoke, she was alone. There was an IV needle in her arm and she was starving, but other than that, she felt fine.

The place was unlike any hospital room she had been in before, which was a few. Her bed was huge, with heavy dark covers and velvet drapes. The walls were carved of intricate black wood and maroon wallpaper. The ceiling was twenty feet high and painted like the inside of a Renaissance church, with strange mythological beings and gilded carvings surrounding a grand crystal chandelier.

_ Where am I? _

Careful not to bump the IV, Lovelace sat up in bed. Her glasses were on the bedside table. Someone had dressed her in a white lace nightgown. Soft yellow slippers, just her size, waited on the floor. As she put them on and stood, she felt her torso. No pain, nothing broken. Even her consistent, pulsing headache was gone.

_ I just died.  _

She couldn’t remember it happening. But like a wave, she remembered everything else — running after the bus, meeting  _ Death _ , grabbing his hand. And now she was here. Alone. God knew how long she had been asleep, or what they had done to her.

She looked around for her phone. Or a phone, really. But there was none. Her phone was with her wallet and keys, inside her coat pocket, probably being used right now to identify her body. 

The thought sent a chill down her spine. She was legally dead. Sure, she’d thought about faking her death and running away to a life of crime before, but everybody thought like that in their teens. Now it had happened. Just like that. What was left of her? They wouldn’t find much at her apartment. Some second-hand clothes. A struggling laptop. A couple Pink Floyd albums; a record player with a broken needle that she hadn’t gotten around to replacing. Everything else was shared between herself and Dasanya. She had about two hundred dollars in her savings; the rest of her estate was debt. So much debt.

Something ached in her chest. She didn’t see many intestacy cases, as her old law firm only served high-paying clients with existing wills, and she knew at least her student loans would dissolve. But a looming sense of dread told her that the rest of the debt wasn’t going anywhere good. She didn’t have a will or life insurance. Would Ophelia —

The door opened. Lovelace jumped. 

The thing that entered was — well, monstrous, to say the least. It had a body like a barrel and a head like a beetle, and it scuttled along the floor on legs like a spider’s. It was black and inky. A ring of woven daisies sat on its head like a crown.

When it saw her sitting up, it jumped too.

_ “Ah, mistress!” _ it clicked. Its voice was vaguely female, but in the way that a computer’s voice is female.  _ “At last, you’re awake.” _

“Excuse me, what are you?” asked Lovelace, stepping back.

But the daisy-clad droid didn’t seem to catch the question. It rolled up to her and flicked on a strange little flashlight from where its eye might be. A little motor whirred. The flashlight scanned Lovelace up and down.

_ “All vitals normal,”  _ it said. 

“So I’m alive,” said Lovelace. “I’m not actually dead.”

_ “Yes. You are alive. You only had seven broken ribs, a shattered clavicle, a dislocated shoulder joint, and a pierced lung. You also had mild intestinal bleeding from extensive use of over-the-counter nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, also known as NSAIDs. However, we fixed you up good as new!” _

A pit formed in her gut. “Thanks?” 

The droid flashed a cheerful little light. “ _ You are welcome. Please sit and hold out your arm.” _

“I’d rather not.”

_ “Please sit and hold out your arm. I would like to remove the intravenous needle.” _

Hesitantly, Lovelace obeyed. The droid developed two padded hands and wrapped them around her arm to keep it steady, and then a third hand gently pulled the needle out. A fourth and fifth hand applied a smiley-face bandaid. Then the droid retreated. 

_ “I’ll notify Master Death,” _ it said. 

“For what?”

_ “Please make yourself presentable for your interview. You shall find everything you need in the wardrobe.” _

Then it scuttled back out of the door and vanished, quick as it had appeared.

Interview?

Now more confused than before, if that was even possible at this point, Lovelace looked in the wardrobe. Everything was new and just her size, as if someone had taken her measurements while she slept. “Not weird at all,” she murmured. There were a lot of clothes quite similar to the ones she had worn when she died; skirts, soft sweater vests, button-downs. Neckties. She liked ties, but the female employees of Klein, Sanderson & Malone, LLC were not allowed to wear them. Some excuse about a tie on a woman “suggesting gender nonconformity”. She picked a yellow one.

Next to the wardrobe was an elaborate black vanity with a cushioned velvet stool. Like the rest of the room, it looked as if it had been pulled out of a time capsule, its marble surface lined with Victorian perfumes and hair tools. The drawer, conversely, held a selection of luxury makeup from Sephora. Lovelace marveled at a beautiful eyeshadow palette that she’d seen in an advertisement just yesterday; it was more than she’d ever be able to afford.

Then her eyes caught on something else — an old-fashioned straight razor, a gleaming little blade.

“What am I doing here?” she whispered. She had to get back to her life. She had to let Dasanya and Ty know that she was alright. And most importantly, she had to leave this magic nonsense behind. In the back of her mind, there was always a fear that it would catch up to her again in some way or another, and here it was.

Interview, weird droid things, Death, who cared. It wasn’t her problem. 

She pulled her hair back, grabbed the straight razor, and pulled on a pair of boots that she could run in. On second thought, she took a handful of the expensive lipsticks and shoved them in her pants pockets; maybe she could sell them. Then she left the room. Initially, she considered a stealth approach, but while the halls were appropriately dark and shadowy for a villain’s lair, there wasn’t much cover. Whatever. She squared her shoulders and strode down the corridor.

More little droids, similar to the one with the daisy crown, scuttled like beetles around the halls. Most of them didn’t pay her much mind. When one did, droning, “ _ Excuse me, your face is not registered in my database —  _ ” she shoved it with her foot and kept going.

The fallen droid began wailing, a mechanical alarm. She sped to a jog. Then a run. She glanced over her shoulder and saw a dozen or so of the things rolling after her, waving their arms.

“Leave me alone!” she yelled.

There didn’t seem to be any windows in this place. She tried some doors, but they were all locked. An iron spiral staircase took her to an identical corridor, free of droids, but darker. Only a single light was on in the center of the hallway, a spotlight.

Death stood in the spotlight, arms folded. “Good morning.”

“I’m leaving, Death,” Lovelace snapped. 

“Not even going to thank me for saving your life.”

She ignored that. “Show me the door.”

“Closed for today,” he said flatly. “The Shadow Lair exists in a separate dimension from your world; you can’t open it. Put down the razor.”

She gripped it harder. “No!”

“You’re going to hurt someone — ”

“Yeah! Get out of my way or it’ll be you!”

“I’m warning you — ”

Lovelace didn’t give him time to finish. She charged at him, gripping the razor.

Death jumped back, surprised, then snapped into action. Lovelace slashed at him. With all the ease of an expert martial artist, he ducked and hooked his legs behind hers. 

Her feet swept out from under her and she hit the ground, hard. It was enough to wind a man much larger than her. Death thought this and stepped back, letting his guard down. 

But what Death did not consider was that Lovelace was not a large man. Lovelace was a small woman, and small women have many qualities that large men do not. For example, many small women are gifted with what some call “berserker fury”, a trance-like rage that gives them the power to do things otherwise impossible for a human being. This is a gift both archaic and modern — born of ancient mothers to defend their children from predators, passed down by the warrior-women of the Vikings and the Amazons, cultivated by the glass ceilings and millions of invisible social rules that push and pull on every person assigned female at birth. It lives on in feminists on the front line of the march, little girls on the playground defending their best friends from bullies, and middle-aged white women at the grocery store when the cashiers are busy. 

The berserker fury is generally rare to experience. In this sense, Lovelace was unique. While many people might go their lives without knowing the gift is there, Lovelace experienced its presence almost constantly. Not a second passed in her life without it being two threads away from snapping.

She had snapped long ago.

Without taking a breath, Lovelace jumped to her feet and screamed, an unbroken, inhuman scream. Then she gripped the razor in her fist. 

Death turned around only barely in time to grab her wrist, but she was an unstoppable force. She writhed and kicked. Her foot connected solidly with his stomach and he let her go, stumbling.

There was no decorum to the fight, no elegance, not even a shred of honor. Lovelace didn’t care much for any of them. Death was down and she kicked him in the stomach. Then she shoved her boot onto his chest and leaned her weight on it, pointing the razor right between Death’s golden eyes.

“Tell me where the exit is,” she spat. 

“You can’t leave,” Death said, his voice strained.

“You never mentioned that this is a prison.”

“It’s — not — but you’re legally dead. If you leave, it’ll call the whole government down upon you. And then upon us.”

“Sounds like your problem.”

“It would be _ very much  _ your problem as well.”

“Yeah, well, I’m really good at avoiding my problems, so try me.”

“Why are you doing this? Didn’t you want to — ”

“I changed my mind, okay?” Lovelace leaned more of her weight onto Death’s chest and he grabbed her ankle reflexively, but he was struggling to breathe. “I’m tired of this magic destiny thing. You know what, I don’t care if you’re a supervillain sworn to bring down the Stargazers or whatever, I don’t even know, but it’s not MY problem. You know what I want? You know what neither you nor the Stargazers can give me? I want a life where I don’t have a magic destiny, and I want you nutjobs to leave me  _ alone!” _

Death pushed himself up suddenly, throwing Lovelace off balance. They stumbled apart from each other. Lovelace prepared to charge again, but then he held out his hands, a surrender.

“You won’t have much alone time if you don’t  _ listen!  _ The world is going to end in six months — everything you love, gone!”

She stopped. Adrenaline still ran hot in her blood. But in the midst of it all was a cold, sharp blade, sliding neatly through her heart.

“I don’t love anything,” she said.

“That’s fair, honestly,” said Death. “But I saw you last night. Seconds from death. You’re terrified of it, you’d do anything to buy more time. How would you feel if you could only get six months?”

Now she didn’t say anything. She wanted to believe that he was bluffing. The end of the world wasn’t that simple, was it? But Lovelace knew a bluff when she saw one — she worked with lawyers. When Death said that the world was ending, he believed it. How did he know? What did she have to do with it?

But instead of that, Lovelace narrowed her eyes and said, “Well, I’d try to make the most of it. Because you can’t pretend to know what I’m afraid of.”

At the end of the dark hall, a flicker caught her eye. A sliver of white sunlight that vanished and appeared intermittently, a dark curtain moving across a window in some unfelt wind. An exit. Maybe it was a balcony. Perhaps she could hang over the edge and drop like in the fire safety videos she saw in elementary school. Or maybe she’d have to climb down the side of the building. Either way, a possible exit. Death saw it too, but he didn’t lunge at Lovelace again. Just watched her as she smirked, pushed past him, and walked to the door.

“Don’t,” said Death.

She gave him a proud smirk. “Why not? I’ve already made up my mind, I’m leaving. Quit following me.”

He did not stop following her. She sped up to a jog. So did he. 

“I’m not sure what you’re planning,” he called, “but if you’re thinking of jumping out a window to escape, I need to warn you that the Shadow Lair doesn’t abide by the normal laws of object permanence.”

“What does that even mean?” she yelled back at him. She reached the window and yanked the curtain back. “Nothing you say makes — ”

Her last word was lost in a gasp. The curtain no longer obscured a windowpane. The white sunlight was gone. Instead, she found herself at the end of another long, but narrower hallway. Eerie yellow lights bobbed between the black marble pillars, leading the way to a single set of double doors.

Death stopped by her side, his hands in his pocket. He didn’t say anything, and his facial expression remained the same blank indifference as always, but somehow it was as infuriating as if he’d mocked her outright.

“Actually, I think I’ll leave you alone with this,” he said, then walked away.

Lovelace was speechless. She wanted to protest, ask him what this was and where it led, but she knew in her heart of hearts that she had just been defeated. She couldn’t be a needy loser. She decided to say something that would convey that she was still proud and strong despite the defeat. 

“Fine!” she said weakly. “Whatever!”

Nope, she shouldn’t have said that. At least Death didn’t give her the humiliation of a response. 

Inhaling, Lovelace tentatively stepped into the corridor. It was a strange place, and not just because of the magic orbs of light floating above her head — it had a scent that she couldn’t quite place. Or...not really a scent. Maybe a sound? A constant, low pitch, like someone blowing across a glass bottle with an unending breath. Perhaps it was the way the light moved, the way the shadows fell. There was a presence that Lovelace couldn’t describe, that she couldn’t remember ever feeling before, but which was innately familiar all the same.

She stopped before the double doors and looked over her shoulder again. The hallways behind her were empty, no androids to stop her, Death nowhere to be seen. She could go. She could find another escape. And she could live her life.

A life that would end in six months, and she would never know why.

She inhaled. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she whispered. She didn’t even know what  _ this  _ was. 

Slowly, she pushed open the doors.


	7. Lovelace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys! no idea where this teeny tiny chapter is going. i've been sitting the chapter after this one for like a month and don't know how to do it. so like, i'm just posting this and going, fuck it, because i have no idea what im doing ever
> 
> take it and please give me compliments

The room beyond was dark. Not in the way that the hallways were dark, a forbidding darkness that took up too much space. But a comforting darkness, a darkness that blended with the warm lamplight. Thousands of books, gold-leafed and leatherbound, lined the walls. It was the darkness of a private library. 

Lovelace turned forward and locked eyes with a man. He sat behind an elaborate wooden desk, accented with an ivory lamp, a single fountain pen, and a thousand books and papers drifting between them. One of the books, a tiny blue thing with a bird on the cover, dangled from his hand.

The man had a strange face. Distinctive in the way that she knew she would always recognize him. Curly salt and pepper hair; intense eyes with silver glasses. He wore an old-fashioned black suit and a golden tie, like the young Death, but Lovelace noted a sheen in the silk, a worn smoothness of the jacket’s gold buttons that set him apart. He was long accustomed to finery, but not wasteful with it — this sanctuary of his was old and loved.

Gently, the man set down his book and stood. “Good morning,” he said. A nice voice. A distinguished English accent. 

“Hello,” she said cautiously. 

She turned to close the door behind her, but did a double take. There was no door, just books and a small brown globe. When she turned back to the man, she found that his desk was gone too, replaced by two elegant armchairs. The back wall was now a warm hearth, crackling with a merry fire. 

She took off her glasses and rubbed them. The man sat in one chair and gestured to the other.

“Please, my dear, make yourself at home,” he said.

Normally she wouldn’t dare do such a thing. But this man’s presence was warm, like a beloved grandfather’s — was he old enough to be a grandfather? He had to be. Something about him felt...ancient. As soon as she sat, she noticed a small table between the two chairs. A porcelain tea set had appeared there. The man poured himself a cup of strange, glittering gold tea, then offered her the teapot.

“Tea or coffee?” he asked.

This question, despite its simplicity, made her frown. There was only one teapot, from which the gold tea had come. It seemed like a question with only one answer. 

But she said, “Coffee, please, and sugar and cream if you have it,” just to see what might happen.

Her curiosity was answered. The man took the same teapot and poured, but this time, it was black coffee. When he took a spoon and stirred, cream appeared; and when Lovelace accepted the cup and took a sip, she found it sweetened just right. It was the best coffee she had ever tasted.

“Thank you,” she said, surprised, but after a few more sips forced herself to put the cup down. “I just...have a lot of questions.”

“Naturally.”

“Wasn’t there just a desk here? What happened to the door? How does that teapot work, where can I get one, and who are you?”

The man smiled and paused to sip his tea. As he did, a ring on his hand caught the light — a pearl in an elaborate gold setting. “This room has a mind of its own,” he said, “but for the most part, it will adjust to fit our needs. The desk will return if I call it, the door will reappear when you wish to leave, and the teapot will remember your drink of choice.”

“Whoa,” she murmured.

“As for me, my name is Zorandar Shade,” said the man. “I’m a supervillain. I’m also Death’s father.”

Zorandar Shade. This family certainly had an affinity for weird names.

“You sent him?” asked Lovelace.

Shade nodded slowly. “I trust he’s been a good host?”

She took a long gulp of coffee, suddenly aware of the razor blade in her pocket and the stinging where her shoulder had hit the floor. “I’ve…had warmer welcomes.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I’m not a fan of almost dying. Or dying for real. I was told that I had a collapsed lung and broken ribs, and I’ve seen a lot of weird things since, so I can’t fully believe that I’m alive right now. But either way, I didn’t like it, and I still have a lot of questions.”

“As you should,” Shade said, setting down his tea. “However, I believe it’s my turn. I have questions for you.”

That almost made her laugh. It came out more like a harsh barking. “What don’t you already know about me?”

Shade’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Like you guys  _ don’t  _ have everything,” Lovelace said, sarcasm dripping heavily. “Medical records, college transcripts, internet search history, what about that? Death said you can even watch me on a magic livestream. Not like that’s creepy at all.”

Her laugh petered out when she saw the blank look on Shade’s face. 

“Wait. You don’t have that?”

He shook his head. “The Stargazers have everything. We have limited access to the scrying network — the magic livestream. For yours, we only started viewing it when we received notice that you would die yesterday afternoon.”

“Okay, also not creepy at all, but you don’t have anything else?”

“You sound pleased that we couldn’t run a background check. Should I be worried?”

“No, just — ” Lovelace’s eyes were wide. She breathed a long, deep sigh and touched her bun, an old habit that came out when she was surprised or relieved. It was both this time. “I…made mistakes when I was younger. Nothing really bad. But the Stargazers held them over my head, and I’d rather not do that again.”

She had taken enough professional development classes to know not to make a confession like that in an interview. But Shade just nodded. 

“I understand,” he said. “I won’t pry.”

“Thank you.”

“Think of this as a new start.”

A new start. She liked that.

The table between them now had a plate of assorted cookies next to the tea, and Shade offered her a few. They, like everything else, were the best things she had ever tasted. 

“But it really is embarrassing how little we know about our candidates when they come in for the interview,” Shade chuckled. “Death looked for your wallet, but it must have been left at the accident. I don’t believe I know your full name.”

Oh, wow. They really were starting on a fresh page.

“You can change it, if you want,” Shade added. 

“It’s Lovelace,” she said.

“First name?”

She hesitated. “No,” she decided. “Just Lovelace.”

“Lovelace. A pleasure,” said Shade, extending his hand. 

She accepted and they shook.

“Without prying,” he continued, “I want to know why you’re here.”

“Well, I was kind of given a one-sided choice to follow Death or literally die, which I still have complaints about, by the way — ”

“Not that. I mean, why are you a person of interest for the Stargazers?”

She inhaled. “They tried to recruit me about three years ago,” she said. “I was a junior in college; I guess they mostly look for ‘child prodigies’. The dean of my school met with me and said I was qualified to apply to the Institute of Psionic Sciences. I said, let me think about it. I only agreed to interview because I needed time off from work and school, I knew I’d get a free hotel stay for a week. Then I turned the offer down.”

Shade raised an eyebrow, amused. “That’s…bold.”

“Oh, it was beautiful,” Lovelace agreed.

“So why turn it down?”

She avoided the question with another question. “What’s your association with them, anyway?” she asked. “I got the supervillain part. I assume there’s some motive there.”

“Them?”

“The Stargazers. Superheroes in general. Whoever you’re a villain against.”

Shade chuckled. “You’re asking for my tragic backstory  _ now _ ?”

Lovelace frowned. “Yes…?”

“Not at the climax of a fight with my greatest rival?”

“I mean…”

“I jest, I jest. Yes, I can tell you, though it’s quite complicated. But long story short, I tried to stop the end of the world.”

He picked up the teapot, handed his empty cup to Lovelace, and poured. This time, what came out was neither tea nor coffee, but a liquid like mercury — heavy, molten chrome that stilled into a perfect mirror. Shade reached over and dipped a tiny silver spoon into the liquid.

“Watch closely,” he said. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in my mind shade looks like michael sheen

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this reckless attempt at an original work!
> 
> This work is in the first draft stage and I'm looking more to spit out ideas onto the page than hardcore edit. If you could direct your comments more along the lines of "I'd like to see more of X character" or "I want to see Y character do Z" or "B section of the plot doesn't make sense?" or "C section is infodumpy, maybe leave some of it to be revealed later" that would be amazing, thank you. I am writing the chapters as I post them. 
> 
> I have no idea when or if I'll keep updating this. But please, bear with me, and if you want more, LET ME KNOW! Comments/critiques/concrit are writing food. :D
> 
> Also feel free to hmu on tumblr @saltwaffle!


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